dr. bernanke has become one of the country's most important and most respected policy makers. he happens to be greatly indebted to woodrow wilson. one of owen wilson's major legislative achievements was the enactment of the federal reserve act of 1913. not to put too fine a spin on that and skipping over a awful lot of history, i just want to point out that i don't think he would have a job today if it wasn't for woodrow wilson. [laughter] for the past five years, he has faced tremendous challenges, adversity, and frustration. that is the lot of an avid washington nationals baseball fan. [laughter] which he certainly is. he and i and the sports fans all know that with the first pick in tonight's amateur draft and stephen strassberg's debut on the mound, things are looking up for the nationals. [applause] that is not really my purpose tonight to talk about them. we know him best as the 14 chairman of the federal reserve , first nominated by george w. bush in 2006, renominated by barack obama for a second four- year term last august. his scholarly expertise is the great depressi

dr. bernanke.i've heard members of this committee on other sides of the aisle say that they are all for addressing the deficit, so long as it never involves any of the revenue sources. can we, in fact, change the trajectory we are on in terms of deficit growth if we only address the revenue -- the spending side and don't address the revenue side? >> i think i would urge everybody to approach this with an open mind and be willing to look at alternatives. in the and people have their own views and decisions to make, but i would think that we don't want to be carving of all possibilities before we get -- >> i guess i'm asking you a different question. i agree everyone should keep an open mind but i telling you they don't have an open mind. they publicly expressed the do not favor the reduction as long as anything having to do with revenue is off the table. can we get to serious deficit reduction, change that trajectory you talked about if we eliminate half of the ledger sheet? >> theoretically you cou

dr. bernanke.his responsibilities taken from the capitals of europe to the great wall of china, to jackson hole, wyoming, and many places. this illustrates the interconnectedness of the 21st century global economy. prior to his government service, he was the howard harrison and gabriel snyder professor of economics in public affairs at princeton university, he served as chair of the economics department from 1996-2002. he began his academic career at stanford's business school before writing at princeton in 1985. he received a b.a. in economics in 1975, some a cloudy and a ph.d. in economics in 1979 from the massachusetts institute of technology. he and his wife and i have two children. born in georgia, he grew up in south carolina. the format tonight is not for a speech by dr. bernanke but he and our inimitable president of the council, the distinguished newsman sam donaldson, will provide the program. sam will interview chairman bernanke and i would ask the two of them to come forward now. after

dr. bernanke's you how the economy is recovering and what steps we can take for steps the government can take to maximize the return to the sustained economic strength. before we turn to chairman bernanke testimony, i would like to extend a welcome to the newest member of the committee, budget committee from hawaii. welcome. we are glad to have you on the committee. sworn in last month as the newest member of the house and we welcome him and particularly to the budget committee. before dr. bernanke's testimony let me turn to the ranking member's statement he might care to make for opening purposes. -- before, mr. chairman for opening this hearing and i want to start by welcoming the newest member congressman of hawaii. we look forward to welcoming you to the economic challenges and it is exciting to see you and your family here being sworn in at the conference and we look forward o welcoming you. welcome to the nation's capital and to you, german bernanke. it's appropriate your coming before the committee to talk about the state of the economy because the health of the u.s. and global eco

dr. bernanke.is responsibilities taken from the capitals of europe to the great wall of china, from wyoming to many places, it illustrating the interconnectedness of the 21st century global economy. prior to his government history, he was a professor of economics and public affairs at princeton university, serving as chair of the economic department from 1996-2002. he began his academic career at stanford business school before writing at princeton in 1985. received a b.a. in economics in 1975 from harvard university, summa cum laude, and a ph.d. from massachusetts institute of technology. he and his wife have two children to report in georgia, he grew up in south carolina. the format tonight is not for a speech by dr. bernanke, he and sam donaldson will provide the program. sam will interview the chairman. i would ask the two of them to come forward now and after the interview we will ask questions from the audience. salmon chairman bernanke. -- sam and chairman bernanke. [inaudible] >> hello. i a

dr. bernanke was asking us to address. and if we do not, we'll put our country in terrible financial straits. so we talked about a number of alternatives. one is americanroadmap.org, which is the ranking member of the budget committee, paul ryan, which is very comprehensive. it would have a slow glide path to bring both our deficits and our debt under complete control and do it without raising taxes and do it without affecting the social security or medicare benefits of people over age 55 or 56. the problem is, the longer we wait, the more out of reach that type of strategy becomes because of the enormo crowding out of our budgets that will happen by interest on our national debt. consequently, we need to address the paul ryan proposal sooner rather than later. even under the paul ryan scenario, when compared to our economy, the budget cannot be balanced and the debt cannot be eliminated until the second half of this century. so it takes over 40 years, given that scenario, to balance the budget and eliminate the debt. howe

dr. ben bernanke. when the 111th congress began, when the president took office, 1.5 years later, the economy has experienced its third straight quarter of economic growth, including 5.6% growth in the fourth quarter of 2009 and 3% growth in the first quarter of 2010. there is a chart to illustrate that. 1.5 years ago, the economy was losing jobs, hemorrhaging jobs. morrhaging os the d and debri to thousand nine wels79,00 , e moh alon noin play ade narly a million bsbetween january and maof tis ye athe cha ows the jo growth the last span of tie. he uim the actions taken by this congress and this the administration also played a significant role. there was the recovery act, which we passed in 2009, and that has contributed to significantly to the economic turnaround, raising real gdp to 4.2 percentage points in the fourth quarter of 2010 and increasing employment between $1.20 million and 2.8 million jobs. the fedeeal reserve nd the fdic have engaged in an unprecedented and coordinated efforts to stabil